


Aria

by louciferish



Series: Earth Angel [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Dogs, Fallen Angels, Light Angst, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Theology, Wing Grooming, Wingfic, fallen angel AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22817899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louciferish/pseuds/louciferish
Summary: “I assume you Fell for each other, once again.”A snippet of a larger Fallen Angel AU, in which Victor and Yuuri are both former angels, struggling together to solve the mystery of why they Fell--and why neither of them can remember it.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Series: Earth Angel [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729858
Comments: 54
Kudos: 203





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [De_Mimsy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Mimsy/gifts), [Hufflehobbit_writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hufflehobbit_writes/gifts).



> **IMPORTANT: Chapter ONE is the new chapter!** If you previously read the single-chapter version of Aria, please be aware I added a chapter _before_ the content that was here previously. I've left the original author's note intact below :) Sorry for any confusion
> 
> Long note ahead! So, about two years ago now, Emma prompted me on tumblr for a fallen angel AU, and I threw out a partial outline. Since then, we’ve discussed it many times, and I’ve expanded on the outline quite a bit, but the story has always been on a back burner to me because… well… I can’t decide how it ends. 
> 
> Recently, Emma’s made a lot of bit life changes, and I wanted to do something for her! So I got the idea to finally sit down and write this, but I didn’t want to start at the beginning, tease everyone with that opening bit, and then leave it unfinished for maybe-forever. 
> 
> Instead, I’ve written one of the scenes I was most looking forward to in the story, from… about the middle (nearing the end) of the idea I outlined. This scene takes place right after the “big reveal”, at one of the emotional climaxes of the story.
> 
> A short summary of what comes before, for anyone who wants it:
> 
> Yuuri, an angel, wakes on Earth one day to find that he’s Fallen. Cast out from heaven, he gets help from other Fallen in finding a place to live, a job, and so on, but he’s haunted by something strange: he has no memory of _why_ he Fell to begin with.
> 
> Some time later, Victor (also an angel) turns up outside Yuuri’s home. Yuuri recognizes Victor as one of God’s favorites, who Yuuri once looked up to, and he believes Victor’s come to smite him until Victor reveals the truth: he’s just Fallen, and someone in heaven told him to look for Yuuri. But he can’t remember who. And he also can’t remember why he Fell.
> 
> Victor moves in with Yuuri as they try to navigate all of this together and figure out what happened to them. There are, of course, shenanigans involving Yurio (still an angel) along the way. Eventually, Yuri gives them a clue to go speak to another Fallen, Christophe. Victor and Yuuri travel to Christophe’s apartment, where they realize he knows them both though they have almost no memory of him at all. 
> 
> Chris reveals that this isn’t the first brush Victor and Yuuri have had with Falling. In fact, they’ve Fallen together hundreds of times. Each time, God has wiped their memories and tried to start afresh, keeping the two of them apart. After revealing all of this and what he remembers of their time together in heaven, Chris notices it’s getting late and offers to let Victor and Yuuri spend the night on his sofa. 
> 
> And that’s where this part of the story begins...

Almost a month passes before Yuuri hears from Lilia again, and then it’s only via text. The message comes through on a Friday night, shortly after he’s clocked in at World’s End for his shift, and it contains only a name, _Christophe_ , and a street address.

“Yuuri!” Emanuel shouts next to his ear, necessary to be heard over the pounding bass of the dance music blaring through the bar speakers. “Stop sexting your boyfriend and go clear those tables, sweetie!” 

Nodding, Yuuri tucks his phone away and grabs a tub and rag to go do his job. Even as he swans between the crowded tables, gathering empty glasses along the way, he can feel his phone like a brick in his back pocket. It’s a busy night, and Yuuri will be here until after the bar closes at two in the morning, on his feet and moving for most of that. It’s the worst possible timing for important information to arrive.

 _Who_ is Christophe, and where is that address? Yuuri doesn’t recognize the street, so it must be across town at least. Is this the answer he’s been looking for all along?

Much as he tries to resist and commit to his work, Yuuri can’t ignore the siren song of that mystery text for too long. After a round of dishes, he tosses his towel on the damp bar and shouts to the newest bartender, Rick, that he’s taking a smoke break. With any luck, Rick won’t tell Emanuel. Emanuel knows he doesn’t smoke.

Yuuri ducks out the back door into the alley. There’s one yellow lamp out here by the door, and it emits a constant, low-frequency buzz that he can feel crawling along the surface of his skin. In the pool of light beneath it lies a mountain of crumpled, discarded cigarette butts. Yuuri steps over the pile and veers to the right, wedging himself into the space between their dumpster and that of the bar next door.

The smell is a searing, sickly sweet of rotting fruit and sugar-rimmed alcohol underpinned with a hint of urine, and the lighting is bad, but no one will notice him here. He presses his shoulders into the rough brick and digs out his phone.

 _What is this?_ Yuuri texts back. 

Lilia’s response arrives instantly. _He may have the answers you’re seeking, if you truly want them._

Yuuri wants. _Of course_ he wants it -- why wouldn’t he? Scrolling up, he highlights the address in the original message, then pastes it into a map search. The result drops a pin some distance from the city, at a spiderweb of thin connecting streets in a town called Perdition. The travel tab informs him that the journey will be two hours by train.

Tickets for today are sold out, and tomorrow as well, but Sunday still has a few openings left. Before he can second-guess himself, Yuuri drops two tickets in his cart and presses _Finish_. The fees will likely eat up most of his tips for tonight, but it’s better to pull off the bandaid quickly. If he waited to buy, he would only worry and question if he should go at all. Sometimes, impulsiveness can be a virtue. 

Tucking his phone back into his pocket, Yuuri returns to work and tries his best to leave _Christophe_ in the alley behind him.

-

By the time Yuuri gets home from work, it’s closer to four in the morning than three, and he’s tired in a way that leaves his bones aching. It was an especially raucous night, which means he was tipped well and treated to after-shift pancakes at the all-night dinner on top of that, but the moment he steps through the door, he wants to lie down on the ground.

Unfortunately, there’s nowhere free for him to sleep between the dogs.

Victor is sprawled out on the futon, one leg thrown over the side and a blanket barely covering anything at all. The moonlight creeping through Yuuri’s broken blinds makes his pale skin and hair look almost translucent. The first dog he brought home, Makkachin, is sleeping curled between his splayed legs, but when Yuuri latches the door she raises her head. 

She gives him a quick look, then yawns wide, pink tongue curling in her mouth. Satisfied that Yuuri belongs here, she lies back down. None of the dogs on the floor stir beyond a few sleepy paw twitches as Yuuri steps over them to reach the hall. 

He barely makes it through the door before falling face first onto the bed. His body sinks into the blankets, and Yuuri sighs. He closes his eyes, trying to remember… There’s something he needs to say to Victor, first thing in the morning. What was it again?

Before he can recall, he drops into the blackness of well-earned sleep.

He wakes the next morning to the sound of the door slamming shut. His whole face is sore, especially his eyes, as if he just got to bed, and there’s a headache already gathering force above his eyebrows. Groaning, he flops onto his side to grab his phone, but it isn’t on the nightstand. He slaps at the bed and floor, searching, and finally fishes it out from under his pillow. 

It’s almost nine-thirty. Not as bad as it could be after a late shift, but late enough in the morning that his battered brain is already demanding caffeine. When he swipes his phone, it opens to an email from the train service, confirming his tickets for tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Right. He needs to tell Victor. 

Yuuri rolls from the bed and pads to the bathroom. Nothing barks at him or runs under his feet, and that explains why he heard the door slam -- Victor must be walking the dogs. Hopefully this time, he’ll come back with the same number he left with.

Even though there’s no one around to see it, Yuuri still ducks his head to hide his smile. He never would have taken in a dog himself, though he’s always loved animals, but Victor seems to be magnetized to them. He can’t resist caring for every stray that stumbles into his path, and though Yuuri would guess some of the dogs had bad lives before, with Victor they all settle in, co-existing despite vast differences in size and temperment. 

Once his face is clean and aching slightly less, Yuuri moves into the kitchen to prepare the morning coffee. He zones out as he does so, slipping into the easy routine of movement. A strange whirring noise makes him jump, but it’s only the refrigerator coming on. 

He’s not used to it being so quiet in here anymore, not with Victor installed on his futon for the past month and their growing collection of scratching, licking, snuffling furry beasts. It’s rare that Yuuri is in the house _alone_ these days.

Eyeballing the tiny window at the end of the kitchen, he considers opening it. At least the sound of sirens out on the street would bring some life back inside. 

As if on cue, Yuuri hears the warning jangle of collars and tags in the hall. He has only seconds to brace himself, then the door cracks wide, spilling a tornado of dogs into the apartment, Victor swirled up in their mist.

He’s laughing, his face split with it, and he moves around the swirl of furry bodies as if he’s dancing -- untangling a leash here, pulling a stick free of some fur there. His long hair, pulled back into a braid for the walk, whips behind him as he moves. 

When he catches sight of Yuuri in the kitchen, the sun rises in his eyes. “Yuuri! Good morning!”

“Good morning,” Yuuri murmurs in return. Almost a month, and too often he still has to tear his eyes away from Victor’s glow. He’s beginning to think Victor’s aura will never dim, not if he remains Fallen for a thousand years.

“It was chaos out there this morning,” Victor declares with relish. “Chaos!”

Yuuri pretends to be more invested in measuring the right amount of coffee than he is in seeing the delighted expression on Victor’s face. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, we’re all fine,” Victor reassures him. Dropping the leashes on the sofa, he steps over the dogs as they seek out their favorite toys, growing and playing little bouts of tug-of-war over Yuuri’s old socks. “It was a totally normal walk for the first block. Then, Ranger saw a _squirrel_.”

Victor makes his way into the kitchen, rooting for something in the cupboards. The galley style kitchen is so narrow, there’s barely room between the counters for Yuuri to stand, much less both of them. Victor’s hand skims his waist, his hips brushing Yuuri’s back as he scoots past, and Yuuri feels fire shoot up his spine. 

The sensation coils, becoming an itch between his shoulders. He straightens. 

Victor sticks his head into another cupboard, pouting. “Are we out of clean glasses?’

“No, there should be a few of the plastic kind…” Yuuri reaches up into the cabinet over his head and pulls out a bright pink cup. 

“Oh, great!”

As Yuuri passes the cup over, Victor’s fingers overlap his own to take it. A sensation like needles surges up Yuuri’s arm. He jerks back.

Oh. He was wrong. Victor’s brightness _can_ go out.

His blue eyes are wide, lips parted as he stares at Yuuri, the pink cup barely hanging on in his hand. Yuuri’s heart plummets at the sight. It feels like Falling.

“I got a text from Lilia last night,” he says quickly, turning back to the coffee machine. It’s not done percolating, but he grabs the canister to pour anyway, and some spills, sizzling against the hot plate underneath. “Have you ever heard the name _Christophe_?”

“Not that I remember.” There’s a little lightness creeping back into Victor’s voice when he adds, “But you know I don’t remember much.”

As he sweetens his coffee, Yuuri lays out what little he knows: the name, the address, and finally the train tickets he already purchased for tomorrow. “That is, if you want to come with me,” he adds at the end, suddenly doubting his choice. He probably should have _asked_ first.

“Of course I’m coming. I’ll get the neighbor to watch the dogs.” Victor’s smile is a lie, barely lifting his lips and not touching his eyes. “We have to do anything we can to find answers, right?”

“Right.”

Yuuri doesn’t bring up Lilia’s final warning, though he can’t say why. _If you really want them_. Of course they want the answer. Like Victor said, they have to do whatever they can.

Taking his mug, Yuuri leaves Victor in the living room with the dogs. Between his fingers, the thin ceramic is searing, but the heat pales in comparison to the ghost of Victor’s skin where their hands had pressed together. _If you really want them,_ Lilia whispers again in his head. Yuuri wants a lot of things these days, and he’s becoming more aware of it with each passing hour. He’s a ball of little more than wants and worries.

-

The train slows, rolling into their station, and Yuuri nudges Victor awake, bumping their shoulders together. Victor grumbles, frowning at the disruption before his silver lashes flutter open. He peers out at Yuuri from behind a canopy of hair. He looks even more out of place in a coach class train seat than he does in Yuuri’s shabby apartment.

“Are we stopped?” Victor asks, licking his lips. 

Yuuri watches until that sliver of pink tongue vanishes again. “Yes. We have to get off.” 

Victor stands, stretching his fingertips to the ceiling, and Yuuri scoots out after him. He rolls his shoulders back as he gets up, feeling all the places where his body cramped in the narrow seats. Around them, the other passengers are reaching into the overhead racks, retrieving backpacks and suitcases. Most of the people on the train are older, with a few young families interspersed.

An elderly woman, her hair dyed a deep shade of brown that only emphasizes the lines on her face, smiles brightly at Victor when he reaches up to help retrieve her bag. “Thank you, sweetie,” she coos. “Is this home for you too?”

“No, ma’am. We’re just visiting.” The woman glances back over Victor’s shoulder to see who the ‘we’ might be and meets Yuuri’s eyes.

To his surprise, her smile widens. “Good for you, dearie.” She pats Victor’s cheek like a fond granny. “I hope you fall in love with it like I did. Life in Perdition is nothing like the city. It’s a great place to raise a family, too.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Victor says. He sounds so sincere. Yuuri can’t imagine how he manages that while clearly lying. 

They shuffle off the train with the rest of the passengers and spill out onto the platform. Yuuri pulls out his phone right away, opening the map to locate the mysterious Christophe’s address. The crowd parts around them, everyone else off without a care to their homes or calling out from the track, greeting family members in waiting at the station below. 

“How far?” Victor asks, his breath on Yuuri’s neck warm as he leans in close to share the map.  
Yuuri zooms in, tracing the route with his finger. “Only a few blocks,” he answers. “It looks like it’s right downtown.” As they head down the steps to the station, the train groans behind them, already pulling away to the next stop on its journey. 

Perdition’s station is aging in a glorious way. It’s a relic of a long-passed era when train travel was new and exceedingly popular. A small golden statue graces the center of a fountain decorated with small, shining blue tiles, and Victor stops in front of it, fascinated. An angel with outstretched wings hoists a flaming sword into the air with his right arm, while around his left ankle a serpent coils, poised as if to strike.

“Come on,” Yuuri says quietly, tugging at Victor’s sleeve. “We need to move.” 

Victor is drawing looks from some of the passers-by in the station, though he isn’t doing anything untoward. It’s not the first time; he makes a striking image even in thrift store jeans with all that long, silver hair spilling down his back. 

Not only his appearance is unusual. There’s an aura about Victor still. Yuuuri’s noticed it, and he expects that humans can sense it too. When Victor’s wings are tucked away and he’s distracted, smiling, forgetting his cares, it’s all too easy to forget that he’s Fallen now. Something about him feels utterly unchanged, and it makes Yuuri’s chest ache each time he notices it anew.

That they cause only a minor disruption by passing through the train station is a win in Yuuri’s books. Soon, they’re on the street, and again he has to pause to catch his bearings. 

Downtown Perdition could be any small town in the world. It has narrow sidewalks lined by well-kept garden beds, wiry trees, and buildings older than any of the residents. As they walk through the town, Victor reads out inscriptions and dates from plaques on the walls.

“Old Post Office, built 1813.”

“Reno’s Bookstore, established 1927.”

Most of the buildings are empty now. The old post office is a boutique clothing store, selling purses decorated with thick paint and rhinestones. A former hardware store from the early nineteenth century is experiencing resurrection as a pawn shop, its windows filled with dusty gaming systems and electric guitars.

They turn left, past a salon and a bakery, and find themselves in front of a three-story brick building. The placard above the door reads _Giacometti’s, est. 1945_ , and remarkably, so does the fresh paint on the window. Through the plate glass, Yuuri can see a few small tables and chairs and, at the back of the room, a long metal counter with a chalkboard on the wall above it. 

He pushes open the door, and a bell rings overhead.

A young woman in an apron is leaning on the back counter as they walk in, tapping on her phone, but she straightens at the sound of the bell. “Hi! Welcome to Giacometti’s. Can I help you?”

Yuuri glances over at Victor to see what he thinks, but Victor’s eyes are singularly focused on a glass case to the woman’s right, which is overflowing with croissants, turnovers, donuts, cupcakes, and several more delights Yuuri doesn’t even recognize. The air is thick with the smell of coffee, and a machine burbles, belching steam from the back counter. 

It doesn’t seem like this can possibly be the correct address, but he and Victor have no other clues to go on. “Uhh… we’re looking for Christophe?”

“Oh!” The waitress brightens. “He’s not working today, but if you’re friends then you can just go up to his place. Do you know where the door is?” Yuuri shakes his head, hoping the woman won’t question why he doesn’t know where his friend lives. 

She points to the front door and recites, “Back outside, down to the corner and then to the right. Go up the stairs there, and Chris’s apartment is on the second floor above us.”

“Thank you.” Yuuri turns to follow the instructions, but Victor stops him, tugging at his sleeve.

“Can we…?” He looks at the pastry case again, and Yuuri sighs. 

When they get back out to the sidewalk, Victor has a croissant in each hand. By the time they round the corner and find the other glass door the girl had mentioned, he’s already licking his fingers after the last bite.

Through the door, Yuuri can see a set of dark wooden stairs, leading up to mystery. He takes a deep, shuddering breath as he reaches for the handle. At the top of these stairs, he may find answers, or he may find… nothing. Just because Lilia gave Yuuri this name doesn’t mean the man upstairs will speak to him.

He opens the door and begins to climb. Each step groans under his weight, followed by an echoing creak from Victor taking the step behind him. There’s a single wall sconce at the top of the steps, decorated with scrolling bronze metal. It’s a touch of ornament in an otherwise unremarkable space -- white walls, brown stairs. Even the door at the top of the landing is plain, beveled reddish wood with no sign or symbol, only an eye hole set at the center of the frame.

Yuuri’s hand hesitates for only a split second in the air before he knocks.

Vague noises from the other side tell him that someone is home, and then the approaching sound of footsteps grows louder, and Yuuri hears the bolt _thunk_ back in the lock. The door opens, a copper chain stretching across the gap, and Yuuri sees a single green eye and a wispy mess of yellow hair. 

“Hello?” The stranger says, and Yuuri shifts his weight from one foot to the other, hands clasped behind his back.

“Yes. Hi. We’re looking for Christophe?” Behind him, Yuuri feels Victor press closer, his chest almost up against Yuuri’s back. The man inside looks up, from Yuuri to Victor, then back again. “Lilia sent u--”

The door slams closed, and Yuuri jumps back. Victor catches him, hands hot against the bare skin on his upper arms. There’s a _click_ that echoes in the stairwell, and then the door flings open wide.

Arms around Yuuri’s shoulders, pulling him in, and around Victor behind him too. They’re pulled into one another, and Yuuri grunts, surprised. 

“My _friends_ ,” the strange man coos. “You’re here! I can’t believe you’ve-- Oh!” He pulls back and presses both of his hands to his own flushed cheeks. His green eyes are dancing now, blonde curls tousled. “We’ve got so much to catch up on. I don’t even know where to start.”

Yuuri blinks and turns to check on Victor, who is still staring at the blonde man, his brow furrowed deeply. 

“Christophe?” Yuuri asks slowly.

The man waves the question away with a flick of his wrist. “Please, call me Chris. We’re modern these days.” Chris’ gaze is focused beyond Yuuri, and he tilts his head and hip at once before asking, teasing, “Victor, have you forgotten me? It’s only been a century -- I can’t possibly have aged _that_ poorly.”

His comment is punctuated with a wink, and it’s as if that tiny gesture flips a switch in Victor’s brain. He straightens, eyes widening, and his lips part in surprise. “Oh, _Christophe_ ,” he murmurs.

Chris chuckles. “There you are.” Stepping back, he pushes the wooden door all the way open, then holds it there with arm outstretched. “Come in, then, both of you. I can tell we have far more to catch up on than will fit on my doorstep.”

Victor takes him up on the invitation, stepping in without even a backward glance, and Yuuri is forced to follow. As he passes by Christophe, the other man winks at him too. Whatever impact that had on Victor, it doesn’t work on Yuuri. It only makes his nose wrinkle.

From a narrow, darkened entryway, the apartment opens up into a wide living area, and Yuuri pauses to take stock. Their host is dressed in tiny pink jogging shorts and a white tank top. With his bleached curls and salon tan, he wouldn’t look out of place as a bartender at World’s End -- in fact, his mannerisms remind Yuuri a bit of Emanuel.

In contrast, the apartment is _dignified_. The building is at least as old as Yuuri’s, but much more well-maintained. The living area is decorated with dark patterned wallpaper in the few areas not covered with floor to ceiling bookshelves, which in turn are eclectic. Leatherbound volumes by Tolstoy and Kant with gold-embossed titles are wedged between a vintage copy of _The Joy of Cooking_ and a splashy, bright-colored paperback romance with a thoroughly cracked spine. 

The low ceiling peaks at the room’s edges with ornamental molding, and rest of the furniture, like the books on the shelves, seems to span the ages. A plush, modern sofa sits atop an antique Turkish rug. Near one of the bookshelves, a purple velvet chaise lounge looks like it crawled directly out of a nineteenth century salon. On the wall across from the sofa, someone has mounted a flatscreen TV and a very sleek speaker system. 

“Have a seat,” Chris says, gesturing to the couch where Victor is already seated. “I’ll make us some tea. Any objections to caffeine?” Yuuri shakes his head, and Chris vanishes through a doorway to the right.

As soon as he’s out of sight, Yuuri drops onto the opposite end of the sofa and turns to Victor, whispering, “You remember him? From before?”

Victor shrugs, mouth twisting into a crumpled mess. “Yes, and no. I think he’s changed a lot. I _do_ remember a Christophe in Heaven, but what I recall--” he gestures toward the floor, lowers his hand, “--I think he was a cherubim.”

Ah. That _would_ explain some of it. Chris had mentioned “a century” in the doorway. Cherubim were perpetually young, rosy-cheeked angels, who usually did work among children and animals. The Fallen, however, aged like humans -- though at a much slower pace. If he’d been a cherub before, then it made sense that after a century he’d still resemble a young man. It would also explain the level of change which Victor is now trying to recognize.

“What else do you remember?”

“Not much.” Victor frowns, staring off past Yuuri, toward the door. “It comes and goes. I think there’s something, a bit of memory of a face, walking together-- and then it’s gone.”

Chris reemerges from the kitchen carrying a polished brass tray. Balanced on top of it are three delicate porcelain mugs with saucers and a bright orange vintage teapot. He sets it down on the old steamer trunk in front of the couch, then begins to pour water into the cups. 

Once again, the collision of new and old in Chris’s place is striking, and Yuuri leans forward. “Have you really lived here for an entire century?”

Chris smiles and wobbles his hand in the air. “Here, as in this apartment?” Yuuri nods, and Chris chuckles. “Not exactly. I lived in the city when I first Fell, like most do. Many years later, one of my former lovers left this place to me when he passed on.”

He finishes pouring the tea and hands Victor and Yuuri their cups before pouring his own. Looking down at the cup in his hands, his smile is tinged with sadness. “I’ve remodeled the upper level, but I like to keep this room much as it was when I found it, as a reminder.” 

Lifting his own cup and saucer, Chris steps back, settling into a high-backed armchair across from them. He glances from Yuuri, on the left side of the couch, to Victor, pressed against the arm on the other end, and his eyebrows raise. 

He leans back, crosses his legs, and settles his cup on his knee before saying, “So. Judging by the warm reception I got from you two in the hallway, I’m guessing you haven’t come to invite me to a party. Why don’t we start with you telling me why you _have_ come.”

Yuuri looks to Victor, hoping something in his memory will smooth the situation, but Victor is staring off at the wallpaper, absently stirring his tea. With a fortifying breath, Yuuri takes the lead. “We got your name from Lilia, but not much else. She seemed to think you might have some answers for us, because we both… Well, neither of us can remember why we Fell.”

In the wake of Chris’s teasing, Yuuri expects him to look shocked or dismayed at the revelation of how much Victor has lost. Instead, he scowls deeply, and Yuuri resists the urge to draw back, instinctively shying away from a gathering anger. But, quick as it occurred, that reaction subsides, replaced by a tinge of sadness as Chris raises his teacup to his lips. 

When he sets the cup back onto the table between them, his face is benign once more. “Well, obviously I wasn’t there, considering,” he says, with a gesture at the cluttered apartment around them. “I didn’t see a thing, so I can’t tell you the circumstances exactly.”

He pauses, reaches again for his cup, then aborts the movement to lay his hands in his lap. “However, I can hazard a guess.”

Yuuri feels the couch shift beneath him as Victor leans forward, elbows to his knees. “Please. Anything could help. Right now we have nothing at all.”

Sighing, Chris rubs his forehead, closing his eyes. For a blink, Yuuri feels the burden of every year of Chris’s long existence settle onto his shoulders -- a century on earth, and before that, millenia above. The cracks widen, and truth spills through his facade.

Throwing the weight off, Chris straightens his back with a quirked smile and spreads his manicured hands wide, palms up. “I assume you Fell for each other, once again.”

 _Again._ The word is a stone thrown into the center of a still pond. Ice water washes over Yuuri in the splash, and he feels the ripples begin to spread in ever-widening rings. _Again_. He glances over to Victor, but pulls his gaze back to the floor before he can take in the other’s expression. He’s desperate to see if Victor is as effected as he is, and yet -- he doesn’t want to know. 

Some things are better left to mystery.

When the couch cushions creak, Yuuri resists looking again, instead raising his eyes to their host. Christophe is still seated ramrod straight in his high-backed chair, watching Yuuri, and his dancing green eyes that had teased so before are now filled with sorrow.

“What does that mean?” There’s a crack in Victor’s voice. Yuuri can hear the jagged edges and shards between the words. “Christophe, please. What do you mean, _for each other_?”

“What do you mean,” Yuuri adds softly, “by _again_?”

With a deep sigh, Chris picks up his tea, but rather than drinking he keeps it balanced atop his crossed legs, cupped in his hands, looking into the depths as if stirring a memory. “There was always something about you two. I wasn’t there for the moment you first met -- that happened a millennia or so before my time -- but I imagine it must have been something to behold.

“By the time I came into being, you were already a matched set. Inseparable. Rarely did I see one of you without his mate.” He smiles softly into his tea. “I didn’t know you personally then. I only watched from afar like so many others, exchanging greetings and little else. You didn’t seem to need anyone aside from one another.” Chris’s green eyes flicker and he looks up, expression gone cold. “Then, things began to change.

“I heard a rumor, and I knew that if I, a mere cherubim, had heard it, then it must have been flitting about Heaven for ages already. Apparently, the both of you had been... asking questions.”

It’s almost funny, and Yuuri nearly smiles. _Asking questions_. Christophe doesn’t need to go into any more detail than that. The meaning is clear; questioning God’s decisions or Their wisdom is one of the cardinal wrongs an angel can commit. Yuuri doesn’t need to ask which of them had started the Fall, either. He’s always been flawed and full of questions. It’s his fault, then. He expected that.

Chris takes a sip of his drink, swallows slowly, and continues, “Alongside the rumor, there was a certain flavor of fear running through the ranks. It hadn’t been long at all since God lost Their first favorite, since Lucifer led so many to ruin. There was a great deal of concern as to the effect it might have if God’s new favorite were to Fall as well.” He shakes his head. “I told myself it was only a rumor, and I heard many others do the same. None of us ever heard a question asked, and as far as I know no one was there to witness what happened next.

“But, the next time I saw you,” he says, looking straight at Victor now, “you were alone. And when I said hello, asked where Yuuri was, you stared at me as if you’d never seen me before. I’ll never forget the sound of your voice, cracked with confusion, when you asked me, ‘ _Who?_ ’”

Yuuri doesn’t need to look at Victor to know his expression. It’s clear in the tightness of his voice as he says, “They erased my memory.”

“Yes,” Chris says gently. “Both of you.”

“So that’s why we don’t remember Falling,” Yuuri muses. The way Chris winces at that statement is… unexpected. Yuuri hesitates. “Is-- Is that not why?”

“Yes and no.”

“Christophe Fell more than a century before us,” Victor says flatly. “This story must have happened a very long time ago.”

“Very long is an understatement.” Chris’s mouth twists, wry. “That was the first time you lost your memories. It wasn’t the last. 

“Time and again, God would wipe your minds and blank the slate, but inevitably you’d be drawn back to one another. How the two of you collided could vary -- a spark when you touched hands, a stumbled step caught by a familiar stranger, an inspiring voice that stood out even among a heavenly chorus. You’d find each other, you’d fall for each other, and then… you’d start to Fall. And it would begin again.”

Chris turns to look at Victor again, a heavy sadness in his eyes. “There were times when the process was so fast that you and I would have the same conversation twice in one day, because by afternoon you no longer remembered that we’d seen each other in the morning.”

His fingers turn white as the porcelain on his teacup as Chris clutches it, a cloud descending over his face. “It was upsetting the first time. It only grew worse after that. Watching what happened -- it wore on me. It was _wrong_.

“Soon, I had questions of my own. It wasn’t long before I found myself kneeling at the feet of the Throne, convicted to Fall.” His green eyes narrow to slits and he spits the next words, “I told Them to Their face what I thought, that you weren’t toys They could play with unrestrained. When I Fell after, it felt… good.”

That final word sits at the center of the room and quietly absorbs them. “Good” is not a word Yuuri ever expected to be applied to Falling. It’s the very antithesis of “good.” 

Isn’t it?

“There must be a reason.” Yuuri feels himself dangling from the cliff. He reaches for the last piece of rope he can see, though it swings just beyond his grasp. “God wouldn’t exile us all over nothing. Not _Victor_. We must have been--” he darts a glance toward Victor, finds him watching, and snaps his eyes back to his own knees. “We must have been bad for each other. Somehow.”

“Never.”

It’s Chris who says it, and it’s not until he does that Yuuri realizes how badly he wanted that denial to come from Victor instead. But Victor doesn’t remember them. _Yuuri_ doesn’t remember, and they only have Chris’s word to tell the truth.

“The two of you were a perfect complement. No one would ever deny that. During the times you were allowed to be together, you radiated peace. There was a contentment between you that carried whether you were singing, talking, braiding one another’s hair or grooming each other’s wings. I never saw one of you falter that the other wasn’t there to catch him.”

It’s only one factor in a list of things, and yet the mention of grooming slams into Yuuri and knocks the breath from his body. He sits on the sofa, stunned into silence, and yet feels as if he’s lightyears away. 

Among all the hosts of Heaven, the one being Yuuri can remember calling a friend was Phichit. He has many a memory of days spent together with the other angel, talking and laughing between assignments. Yet, as close as Yuuri had felt to his shining friend, Phichit had never once been permitted to touch his wings. _No one_ was allowed to touch Yuuri’s wings.

But… what does he really know about himself anymore? If Christophe’s story is true -- and Yuuri has no reason to doubt it -- then Yuuri may well have had a dozen friends before, of whom he now has no recollection at all. He considers his memories of Phichit -- happy, lovely Phichit and his brilliant smile -- and searches the edges of the memory for cracks, gaps. 

He finds none, and that only makes the space between his shoulderblades itch. It’s all wrong. _All_ of it.

Leaning forward, Chris puts down his tea and a mischievous smile flits over his features. He’s talking to Victor, and the exact words pass in and out of Yuuri’s hearing without much sense made of them. He asks about old memories -- jokes they played on angels whose names Yuuri can’t remember hearing, adventures they’d had on a brief assignment together.

None of it sounds the slightest bit familiar to Yuuri, but he can see a light flicker on behind Victor’s eyes. “Sara,” he murmurs to himself, musing. “You know, I hadn’t thought about her, but now that you mention the name…”

Yuuri reaches for his tea to have something to do besides listen to stories he was never a part of, but he finds the cup cold to the touch. He looks to Chris, but the other man is fully engaged with Victor and his attempt to resurrect old memories. 

_They won’t even notice if I leave._ Yuuri takes his cup and wanders toward where he knows the kitchen must be. His first few steps are slow, waiting for one of the others to ask where he’s going, but no call comes. He was right -- they’re too preoccupied with each other now.

Chris’s kitchen is narrow, but clean. The cabinets are painted emerald, and the countertops natural wood. Yuuri runs his fingers along the grain as he walks to the stove. An old-fashioned kettle still sits on one burner of the gas range, and when Yuuri lifts it he finds it still heavy with water. He flips the burner on, then looks around for signs of tea.

He finds what he’s looking for in a drawer beside the stove. The bags are loose inside, a menagerie of brands and flavors, some of the tags so old that the white sections have yellowed. Shuffling through them, he plucks out a bag of chamomile. He can still hear Chris’s voice from the next room and, occasionally, Victor answering, but the old walls are thick enough to mask the words. 

The kettle whistles, and he pours his tea. Steam rising off the little cup immediately carries the scent of herbs, and Yuuri presses his nose close to inhale. 

Chamomile always reminds him of Minako. It’s what she’d made for him, that first night after he Fell. He’d gone through half a pot while leaned up against the counter in her studio apartment, and she’d pressed one hot cup after another into his hands, insisting it would calm his nerves.

It works better now than it did then, when it only made his gut feel heavier.

When he returns to the living room, both pairs of eyes settle on him. Victor opens his mouth as if to say something to Yuuri, but the gesture turns midway into a yawn that cracks his jaw, arms stretched back as he does so.

Chris leans back in his chair. “Ah. It _is_ getting late. Do the two of you have a place to stay in town?”

Yuuri and Victor exchange a look. “We don’t,” Victor admits. 

“We got kind of caught up in getting answers,” Yuuri adds. “I didn’t think we’d be here so long.”

“Sleep here tonight.” Chris raises a hand, forestalling protests Yuuri hadn’t actually intended to make. “There’s only one bedroom upstairs now, but the couch has a pull-out. It should suit you fine, at least for a few hours.”

As he speaks, a white shadow detaches itself from a nearby cushion and winds between his ankles. Yuuri hadn’t even noticed the cat before. Fluffy and pale, it had been perfectly camouflaged against a white velvet bed in the corner. Now, it leaps onto Chris’s lap, and he scoops it up with a chuckle.

“The princess is alerting me that it’s past bedtime too,” his grin broadens, “and reminding me of my tendency to take in strays.” 

Yuuri thinks about Victor’s dog collection back at home and wonders if that hobby is common among the Fallen. He’s never been the sort to adopt strangers or animals… unless, of course, he counts Victor.

Christophe stands, draping the cat over his shoulder like a fur scarf or a feather boa, and goes to a nearby closet, poking through and tossing out spare blankets and sheets until a towering pile of linens overwhelms the nearest corner of the sofa.

The closet must be empty by the time he’s done, but he still frowns at the couch when he shuts the door. “If you need anything more, I’ll be upstairs. Just be sure you knock before entering, yes?”

Yuuri nods and hears Victor hum his own assent. “Good night, friends. Sleep well. We can talk of more pleasant things in the morning over breakfast.”

With that farewell, Chris ascends the stairs with his cat in his arms, and he leaves Yuuri alone with Victor, the unfamiliar apartment, and a thousand years of silence.


	2. Chapter 2

“ _I assume you Fell for each other, once again._ ”

Christophe’s words echo in Yuuri’s mind as he lies on his back, staring up through the darkness at the mottled ceiling of Chris’s little apartment. The pull-out sofa mattress is so thin, he can feel every single spring beneath him, pressing through the padding and corkscrewing into his back. It creaks and whines each time he turns or twists, trying to find a position in which he can escape the coils. 

In contrast, Victor’s breathing is deep and even on the other half of the bed, lying close enough that Yuuri can feel his warmth radiating like a halo, trapped beneath the sheets. Apparently, Victor still sleeps like an angel, drifting off in a swaddling of clouds, even after hours of fraught conversation and a mountain of revelations he couldn’t have expected.

_Oh, you’ve been in love for millennia._

_You’ve Fallen together a hundred times._

And yet, Yuuri can’t _remember_ it. Frustration swells in his chest, and the sharp end of a spring pokes insistently into his shoulder blade, scratching at the place where his wings are concealed, aching to be free. 

Yuuri can’t recall the last time his wings gave him so much trouble. He’d like to blame the mattress, or the numerous mind-wipes he’s apparently had at the hands of God Themselves, but he knows neither of those is the true root of his current occupation.

 _You were always grooming one another_ , Chris had said, as if it were just one more tiny detail in the list. And it should have been. It should have been nothing amidst the storm of new information bearing down on Yuuri today, but it isn’t. 

Yuuri hasn’t had his wings out in years. He’d released them once in the immediate wake of his Fall, needing to see the evidence writ on them to know his nightmare was real. Back to the cracked mirror in his bedroom, he’d cringed away from the sight on instinct. He’d never been a fan of his wings even before he Fell. They’d never been typical, their blues too deep and already tinged with grey. Most angels had wings that were primarily white, like Victor’s had been. Other colors might weave in, touching the tips and brightening the down, but wings were meant to be bright, joyous. Yuuri’s had always been too close to the shades of a Fallen.

He hadn’t imagined how much worse they could get. 

But, according to Christophe, Yuuri had shared his wings with Victor. He had let Victor touch his feathers, straightening and pulling the dead weight, burying his fingers deep in the musky down and scratching at those places that seemed to always itch, the spots no angel could hope to reach alone. 

And Yuuri had groomed _him_ in turn. He’d touched those shining white, rose, and gold feathers with his own hands. He’d smoothed the ruffles out, stroking down to the tips where the pink was most intense, almost magenta, and the gold highlights cracked through Victor’s feathers like lightning. 

Yuuri sighs again and wriggles. The mattress creaks. His hands are aching now with phantom memory, and he can feel every spark of tingling itch flash through his long-repressed wings. Though they’re folded away still, out of sight, it feels as if he’s lying on them, pinning them to the mattress with his weight, and he can’t seem to shift in any way that provides relief.

“You okay?” 

Victor’s whisper startles Yuuri, and he jumps, heart beating like a wild thing on alert. “I thought you were asleep,” he hisses back. 

“No. I can’t get my brain to stop running.” The mattress groans and rolls as Victor turns onto his side to face Yuuri, close enough now that Yuuri can feel Victor’s breath gust against his cheek when he sighs. “We came to see Chris for answers, but I’m afraid I only have more questions.”

“I know what you mean.” The biggest question should be _why_ : why were their memories taken? Why were they so drawn to each other? Why had Yuuri been picked to Fall permanently on his own? Why, later, had Victor finally been sent to join him?

That _should_ be the question Yuuri’s asking, but he can’t think through the aching, interminable itch of his hidden wings. He wriggles again, trying in vain to soothe them by scratching his shoulderblades on the mattress. 

“Yuuri, is something wrong?”

Yuuri freezes and feels his cheeks go pink. He’s lucky it’s so dark in here. He’d forgotten that Victor would notice his squirming. “Yes, I’m fine. I’m just-- I can’t get comfortable, and part of it is the mattress, but also my _wings_ \--”

“Do you want a hand with those?” Victor’s question is followed by a rustling sound, as Victor mimes scratching against the bed sheets.

Yuuri _does_ , but he doesn’t. He can’t even bear to look at his own wings--how could he ask anyone else to do it? 

“No,” he says, but even as he answers, the itching intensifies. It would feel so _good_ to give them a thorough cleaning, but it’s also so… intimate. He pictures it: Victor kneeling on the mattress behind him, cloaked in Yuuri’s feathers, his long fingers buried in Yuuri’s wings, delving down even beneath the pinions to find warm, delicate skin. Just thinking of it, he has to suppress a shiver.

“Why don’t you want me to touch you?” Victor whispers.

Yuuri goes still at the question, struck. “That’s not it at all,” he says, once he’s over the initial shock that Victor might think such a thing. It’s never even occurred to him that Victor-- _Victor_ , the shining light, God’s favorite creature--might think Yuuri was opposed to his touch.

It’s so much the opposite.

“Then why won’t you let me help?” Victor pleads. His tone is verging on frustration, and that strikes Yuuri as well. Something about lying together in the darkness brings new meaning to the words they use, without the filters of expression and body language to confuse things.

Yuuri chews his lip as he feels something within him yield to Victor’s quiet request. “Chris might walk in,” he says, knowing even as he does that it’s a weak protest. Chris is the one who sparked all this. Even if he were to get up in the middle of the night and wander in, it would hardly be newsworthy to him. He probably believes that Yuuri and Victor still groom one another all the time.

“Please.”

That one quiet word is more than enough to shatter the last of Yuuri’s token defenses. He wants to do this so badly, and if Victor wants it too, then how could Yuuri continue to deny him?

He swallows, skin gone clammy in an instant at the thought of what he’s about to do. His tongue feels thick in his mouth, an answer impossible to form with words, much less one that would describe everything Yuuri is feeling right now. Rather than speak, he scoots to the edge of the mattress. Feet planted on the floor, he reaches for his collar, then pulls his soft blue sweater off over his head.

The apartment is so quiet, Victor’s hiss echoes in the darkness. Yuuri tries to steel himself, so he won’t flinch from it, and squeezes his eyes closed. It isn’t necessary to tense or hide himself to release his wings. In fact, it would be easier if he relaxed. Other angels, Fallen or otherwise, can do it that way--they exhale, and feathers flow forth from their shoulders like a stream that swells and overruns its banks.

For Yuuri, wound tight as the coils in the mattress, it feels more like a volcanic eruption. 

A loud creak accompanies the shift of the mattress at Yuuri’s back, and he tenses further, waiting for--something. A touch. An exclamation. Instead, Victor exhales.

Warm breath ruffles the fluffy down at the crest of Yuuri’s shoulders, and he shudders. 

“I’m going to turn on the lamp.”

Yuuri wants to say no, wants to stay hidden in the darkness, but he knows logically that’s impossible. Victor can’t groom what he can’t see, but _god_ , Yuuri’s never felt so naked. He nods but keeps his head down, elbows on his knees. Golden light floods the room, casting into sharp focus the shabby, red and gold rug beneath Christophe’s couch.

Tracing the swirls of the paisley with his eyes, Yuuri forces himself to breathe deeply. He concentrates on the pattern so well that he almost avoids wincing when Victor’s fingers lightly land on his primaries.

“Oh, Yuuri,” Victor sighs, and Yuuri closes his eyes again, bracing himself for the sound of disappointment, sadness, or even fear. “They’re gorgeous.”

 _Gorgeous?_ It’s the last word Yuuri would use for the evidence of his failure. His feathers had always been too dark, too grey. Now that he’s Fallen, they’ve turned to a deep black, sheened like an oil slick. Where once the tips had been brushed with cerulean ink, they now drip with a blue dark as midnight, barely distinguishable from the black. Yuuri’s wings couldn’t possibly be further from the wings of a true angel. There’s no doubting what he is, and he waits for Victor to stop, to shrink away.

In theory, his primaries are the least sensitive section of his wings, more like hands or feet than anything intimate, but after so long in hiding… Victor runs a finger down the spine of Yuuri’s first, largest feather, and Yuuri shakes.

It’s only the beginning. Victor’s palm presses warm between his shoulder blades, holding him steady at the base of his wings, and then begins his grooming at the root. A sob escapes Yuuri’s throat when Victor first delves into the down where his feathers meet skin, and Victor pauses.

“It’s fine,” Yuuri chokes out. “It’s fine. Don’t stop.”

Victor’s only response is the continued press of his fingers into the aching muscles of Yuuri’s wings, fingertips combing down to skin. Careful, he straightens Yuuri’s neglected mess of a back, working his way from the root out to the largest, flat primaries on one wing, then switching focus to the next. 

Yuuri, for his part, can do nothing but shiver. He buries his face in his hands and bites back the whimpers clamoring to burst from his lips as Victor’s hands support, stretch, and soothe. Somewhere deep in the chaos of his left secondaries, Victor pauses, and Yuuri hears a soft gasp.

His voice trembles as he speaks, but his hands resume their soothing strokes. “Yuuri, how long has it been since your wings were freed?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuri lies.

Once. Only once had he forced himself to look at them, days after his Fall. Never again, until tonight. Victor’s breath tickles the curling hairs at the back of Yuuri’s neck, deep and shuddering, and Yuuri can feel his careful fingers part the sea of tertiaries near his spine. 

Victor pulls back, then leans in, draping himself along Yuuri’s back. “Open your eyes.” His tone is firm, urgent, and Yuuri responds on instinct. Pulling his hands from his face, he looks up. 

There before him, twirling slowly between Victor’s fingers, is a single silvery feather, its tip fading to a serene sky blue. Yuuri tenses, eyes grown hot and blurry at the sight. 

“Where did you get that?”

“Buried between the others. It must have fallen out before your wings changed, then got caught.”

Yuuri swallows. He can’t look away from it even as Victor continues to spin it by the quill. It’s horrifying, embarrassing, and even more captivating than he remembered. Had he really thought his wings were ugly before his Fall? If only he’d taken better care of them.

“What should I do with it?” Victor asks, and Yuuri finally tears his eyes away from the feather.

“You keep it.” It’s the first thing he thinks of. He’s not considering anything beyond the fact that _he_ doesn’t want it--there are too many bad memories attached--but he feels Victor stiffen at his back.

“Me?”

Victor sounds shocked. Yuuri has to turn to see him, ready to apologize and soothe any offense. Victor’s eyes are wide, lips parted, but he’s not looking at Yuuri--he’s staring, fascinated, at the feather. He lays it on his palm, cups it between his hands and turns them, watching the play of light on the colors. There are lines gathering between his brows, hints of a sort of sadness.

“You don’t have to,” Yuuri says quickly. “Sorry. You can just throw it out.”

“Throw it out?” Victor’s eyes flash, and he clutches the feather to his chest. “Never!”

Yuuri doesn’t know what to say to that. He was so certain he’d said the wrong thing; he doesn’t know how to process Victor’s passionate reaction.

After a moment, the tension in Victor’s shoulders releases, and he lowers the feather again, looking down at it with a sad little smile as he strokes one finger along its spine. “I’ll treasure it, Yuuri. I promise. I only wish that I had one of my own to give you in exchange.”

It’s Yuuri’s turn to be surprised. An exchange? It would be.... Yuuri’s never heard of such a thing, actually, but it _feels_ like something. It feels monumental, and it strikes him to his core how Victor accepts this. They’ve only known each other in this new world for a few months. No matter what Christophe says they had before, they’re nearly strangers to each other, and yet here they are--grooming one another, lying together in a single bed, and exchanging remnants of their former lives.

Yuuri remembers Victor’s wings, before his Fall -- pure white at the tops, edged with gold and fading to rosy pink at the tips of his primaries. He’d always admired them, seen their immaculate condition as an example of what an angel’s wings ought to look like. It stuns him, now, to think that Victor would want to give him some piece of that perfection, that he might think Yuuri’s grey feathers worthy of a trade for that. 

Licking his lips, Yuuri gathers himself for what he’s about to do. “When you’ve finished with my wings,” he says, “I could do yours, if you like.”

Victor brightens, smile widening to show a hint of white, even teeth and the tip of his pink tongue. “I would love that.”

Yuuri answers his smile with his own trembling attempt, then turns back away. He spreads his wings and allows Victor to run his hands over their full length, examining the flow of them for any remaining imperfections. With his wings so open now, Yuuri feels as if he could wrap them around the whole world.

They don't get much sleep that night, up late talking and tending one another, soothing away hurts both seen and unseen. When they finally fold their wings away and turn out the light, they lie facing each other on the bed, able dimly to see each other's features still in the light of false dawn. 

When Christophe wakes and comes downstairs only a few hours later, the whistling of the kettle rouses them both. Though Yuuri slept little, he feels more rested than he has in years.


End file.
